Last week, a sexting scandal that exploded at a Colorado high school brought to light the mixed messages kids receive in the pornified culture of 21st Century America.

“Consenting adults can do this to their hearts’ content,” said Thom LeDoux, the district attorney, but “if the subject is under the age of 18, that’s a problem.”

LeDoux said that "under state law it doesn’t matter whether a student took and shared explicit photos voluntarily—it is illegal,” reported The Wall Street Journal. “But he said he would use his discretion, looking at factors such as whether students were coerced.”

Most parents and educators don't want kids to be sent to jail or end up on sexual offender rolls for sexting. But they disagree on how this problem should be addressed, and some experts aren't even sure sexting, in and of itself, is a problem.

Researchers say the practice can lead to ostracism for the teenagers who shared their nude images, which are then circulated beyond the intended recipients. There are even “revenge porn web sites” where ex-boyfriends may post images of their girlfriend after a nasty breakup.

Yet one researcher told the Journal: “Sexting isn’t linked to mental health effects, absent coercion... sexting isn’t surprising among teens or fundamentally different from the behavior of past generations.”

On the New York Times' opinion page, the message to worried parents and educators is even more convoluted.

“It’s hardly certain that youth sexting is the dangerous scourge that most adults imagine,” asserted Jonathan Zimmerman, the author of Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education, in a Nov. 10 op-ed.

Then, Zimmerman shifted gears:

There are serious risks associated with teen sexting, including bullying and exposure to adult sexual predators. And we know that kids who sext are more likely to have sex than those who don’t.

Zimmerman's solution: schools should let trusted public healthcare groups, like Planned Parenthood, communicate with teens via text about the pros and cons of this practice.

Hmm... I went to Planned Parenthood's website for guidance on sexting. The site features morally neutral common sense information, but it also asks viewers if they want to make an appointment at a Planned Parenthood clinic and provides a convenient opportunity to donate to the nation's largest abortion provider.

Fight the New Drug, which has popularized the message, "Porn Kills Love," has a better strategy for helping teens deal with sexting.

But a larger question still needs to be answered: Why won't Zimmerman and other experts provide a consistent message that condemns sexting on moral grounds, as well as warning of its legal and emotional consequences?

Maybe because it is tough to denounce sexting with a straight face when mainstream culture is awash in sexually explicit images, and moms are reading bestsellers called Fifty Shades of Grey.

Civil libertarians and cultural elites have agreed to criminalize only one type of graphic image: child pornography. Yet sexting involves minors sending nude photos of themselves to friends and classmates via smartphones, and recent data suggest that perhaps 30% or more of high schoolers have taken part in this practice.

What should schools and parents do? This Daily Beast lede suggests we don't we have the stomach to stop sexting.

Wherever smartphones and sex hormones coexist, there will be sexting. To stop it, you would have to confiscate every camera in the country, dismantle all cell towers, and shut down the Internet.

Yet, in past years, we have joined together to dramatically reduce other forms of entrenched, risky behavior, like smoking. We throw up our hands about practices like sexting because we don't want to dig deeper and confront the broader problem of porn addiction and other habits we are tempted to normalize.

We don't need to shut down the Internet. But we have to figure out how to foster respect and reverence for the human body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. The first step is for churches to join together and challenge the lie that "consent" makes virtually any form of exploitive sexual practice okay.

Why is sexting wrong for teens, nothing is right or wrong anyway. So “judgmental” to criticize teens for sexting and being involved in premarital sex. Teens are just going to have sex, they can’t be stopped.
Thank god they took prayer out of government schools. Things have worked out so well since then. Thank god the teens aren’t repressed anymore by that old fashion God and Bible morality. Yes, there use to be two types of STDs in the 60s and now there are over thirty types,but hey, life is short, teens are going to die some day anyway, may as well do things that feel good while they are still alive. All they need to do is practice “safe sex,” that will solve everything, well almost everything since condoms don’t stop many STDs, but they might, so don’t worry, be happy.
And the real troglodytes are those who say the premarital sex can harm teens in psychological and spiritual ways. How crazy, it’s like saying killing your child by abortion has lasting negative effects. When the child is dead, it’s over, all problems are then solved.
And thank god government schools are handing out condoms and the wonderful sex education classes teach them how to use them. Can you imagine, some from the dark ages say that actually condones and encourages teens to be sexually active.
And thank god for Planned Parenthood. Such a wonderful and caring organization. So helpful to women.(We’ll except those in the womb.)
The sexual revolution has been a huge success. So many wonderful outcomes.
That crazy Blessed Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae laughably predicted many negative consequences from contraception use. Contraception, especially the pill, has been wonderful for marriage and sexual activity in general. Yes, the divorce rate has skyrocketed since the introduction of the pill, but that is just a minor inconvenience, especially to the children of divorce. They’ll get over it, or they should. Like abortion, it’s not big deal.
And then there is that really crazy Saint John Paul II with his Theology of the Body nonsense. He was just trying to make our bodies a theocracy, or something like that. What did he know anyway? Yes, I know he spent many years teaching the subject at his Wednesday audiences, but he just sort of made it up as he went along. Surely he couldn’t have studied the subject from the time he entered the seminary as some claim. Imagine that,
claiming that our bodies can speak to us and inform us on the right way to live, then he threw in all that Bible stuff as well.
Thank god society in general has abandoned all that God and Bible and church stuff. Things have never been better. Religion has just been the opiate of the masses anyway.

Posted by Robert Goldschmidt on Monday, Nov, 16, 2015 5:40 PM (EDT):

Sophie, they continually get messages about sex being for pleasure, even if many are not about mutual pleasure. Messages about the more significant aspects of sex, especially procreation, are lacking, and making the connection is even discouraged. The message that sex is all about pleasure, whether mutual or not, does not correspond to reality, and it causes big problems. It encourages the view that human will and desire are paramount, and that there are no greater realities. Reality has a way of intruding, however. There is a lot of evidence that it does, but for now just consider the contraception and abortion industries, as well as the number of births outside of marriage.

Posted by Sophie Holloway on Sunday, Nov, 15, 2015 1:19 PM (EDT):

What about bringing love and respect into the equation and teachings. If the end result of sending explicit messages was less likely to be social exclusion and public ridicule because the receiver was aware that these images were for their eyes only maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. Why aren’t we thinking about how to teach young people to respect each other. Better sex education that actually puts the mutual exchange of pleasure at the heart of it rather than anti pregnancy or disease might give young people the respect they deserve and actually help them to seek fulfilling, trust worthy, sexual encounters that studies have proven will be undertaken later in life.

Posted by James on Thursday, Nov, 12, 2015 8:20 PM (EDT):

Do you think they care?

Posted by Steve on Thursday, Nov, 12, 2015 2:52 PM (EDT):

Porn does much more harm to the individual than we imagine. First of all, it changes the brain. The brain has an elasticity to it that “adjusts” to our behavior, and then affects our behavior. In earlier times, we expressed this in the Church with phrases like “lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivandi.” “As we pray, so shall we believe, so shall we live.” In other words, our beliefs and actions are very much linked together. IF we do not live as we profess to believe, we will either change our beliefs to match the way we live, or we will change the way we live to mach what we profess to believe. OR, if we’re stubborn and continue to live out of sync between our beliefs and actions, we develop psychological trauma like depression, anxiety, and a host of other issues that usually lead us to psychological maladies. Psychiatrists offices are full of young women who have bought into the hook up culture through their actions, while claiming to still be “good people inside.” Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

Posted by mrscracker on Thursday, Nov, 12, 2015 12:58 PM (EDT):

The risky behaviors listed above by Mr. Zimmerman seem to ignore moral or emotional risks.
“Protected” sex can sometimes prevent pregnancy & certain STD’s but what of moral, psychological or even criminal risk?
If you’re talking about minors who can not give consent, then any sexual activity has legal risks.

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Joan Frawley Desmond, is the Register’s senior editor. She is an award-winning journalist widely published in Catholic, ecumenical and secular media. A graduate of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies of Marriage and Family, she lives with her family in California..